Tales from the Browns war room -- well, almost

Many of us have imagined what it's like to be inside an NFL team's headquarters.Not as a member of the media (trust me, there's not much exciting about getting an up-close-and-personal view of a Pat Shurmur news conference).We want to truly be on the inside — inside the executive offices during a contract negotiation, inside a coach's office when he is discussing personnel, inside the war room on draft day.Chuck Klosterman, an author and a contributing writer for Grantland, thought he was getting that chance two weeks ago in Berea.Technically, he did — at least until 5:30 on draft night.If you would have guessed how an excellent writer such as Klosterman would portray being a Browns “insider,” this is probably very close to how you imagined the writer's trip to Northeast Ohio unfolding.Some highlights from Klosterman's piece:

Browns general manager Mike Lombardi likes the Southeastern Conference. A lot. Maybe even more than Nick Saban or SEC commissioner Mike Slive.

Lombardi on the best conference in college football: "The SEC is a whole different animal. If all we did was take guys from Alabama and LSU, we'd be (expletive) great."

Klosterman thought he was getting unprecedented access. Instead, he spent much of his time in the cafeteria of the team's headquarters. And he usually had company.“For a couple of hours, a fledging Browns publicist named Brian Smith sits at the same table and tries to make innocuous conversation,” Klosterman wrote. “I ask him if he's doing this to be friendly or if he was specifically instructed to make sure I don't wander around asking questions of random employees. 'Both,' he replies. I don't think they're building chemical weapons in Berea. But they might be. I can't say for sure.”

The article shows how closely the Browns — and every NFL team — guard information.Klosterman hoped to interview Ken Kovash, the Browns' director of football research (translation: He's their analytics guru), but he wasn't allowed to use anything from the conversation he had with the 35-year-old numbers-cruncher.

Klosterman, like Grantland editor Bill Simmons, is a friend of Browns president Alec Scheiner. The former Cowboys executive, who was hired by the Browns in December, escorted the writer around the facility. Scheiner could have added a lot to the story, if only he wasn't as guarded as the rest.“Over the next three days, he tells me many interesting things, but virtually none of them are eligible for attribution,” Klosterman wrote. “He's a very nice guy and a nuanced sports thinker, but his level of caution is profound (almost to the point of being comedic).”

Klosterman said he was told a conversation was “off the record” more times than he had heard the phrase during the past 10 years of his career.“The Browns live in a state of perpetual war, endlessly convincing themselves that every scrap of information they possess is some kind of game-changing superweapon that will alter lives and transmogrify the culture,” he wrote. “They behave like members of a corporate cult.”

It's the NFL way — only Lombardi took the paranoia to new heights when the cable went out and a Browns IT worker had to enter the war room. Barkevious Mingo, according to Klosterman, was the player the team wanted all along with the No. 6 overall selection in the draft. His name was on a dry-erase board in the war room — until the IT employee made an appearance.“Sometimes the cable cuts out and all three televisions flicker in unison — but before an IT worker is allowed to enter the room and check the connection, Lombardi hastily erases Mingo's name from the white board,” Klosterman wrote. “This IT worker is a Browns employee who (I assume) works in the facility every single day. He's nobody. Yet he still can't be trusted. It seems a little crazy, but that's how this world operates. It's crazy on purpose. I think they like it that way.”

Klosterman believed he would be in the draft room when the Browns made their selection of Mingo.He didn't even make it to 6 p.m.When Jimmy Haslam walked into the war room at 5:30, Klosterman was told he had to leave.He watched the rest of the first round of the draft with the rest of the media — in the practice facility, with the televisions tuned into ESPN and/or the NFL Network.It's not how he thought the night would go.It's exactly how the rest of us imagined it would.You can follow me on Twitter for sports information, analysis and, hopefully, more stories about Mike Lombardi and a dry-erase board.

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